This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here. 

Professional development for Waldorf teachers and home school parents

This course offers you an invaluable opportunity to focus entirely on your upcoming fifth grade school year in five days brimming with discussions, presentations, and the arts.

With the insights of anthroposophy, gleaned through a daily look at child development focusing on your class’s age group, you will get to know the fifth grade child in depth as they stand on the balancing point between childhood and adolescence. Under the guidance of a master class teacher, you’ll discover how to enliven your teaching and how to approach the blocks so that they may meet the fifth grader in a meaningful and lively way. There will be time and space to consider and hone your skills in such practical matters as main lesson books, block planning, projects and activities, and classroom management.

Your week will be chock-full of key fifth grade topics such as:

• The teaching of ancient cultures, including Greek history and mythology
• Teaching free-hand geometrical drawing
• Developing language skills in reading and writing
• Expanding the reach of geography to encompass all of North America
• Bringing the plant kingdom to life through botany studies
• Building on fractions skills toward the discovery of the decimal fraction

These subjects will be supported by explorations in art, music, and movement, giving you practical tools to take into your school year.

In addition to inspiration and guidance which will support your teaching throughout the year, you’ll gain many invaluable opportunities for building connections among a community of parallel colleagues from across the country, to carry with you into your teaching.

Grade-specific resource materials useful for your year, including poems, songs, stories, and main lesson book ideas, will be provided to you electronically.

 

NOTE: This course is taught with the expectation that you have a background in Waldorf Education.

 

Lead Instructor

Karen Crandall is a class teacher at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, where she currently teaches a mixed third/fourth grade. This is Karen’s third class cycle; she led her first class, grades one through eight, from 1993-2001, and her second class from 2007-2012. Karen has chaired her school’s Teacher Development Committee since 2010, and is a part of their mentoring support. She also sits on her school’s Collegium. A seasoned Sunbridge Summer Grades instructor, Karen holds a BFA from Penn State University and an MSEd from Sunbridge College.

 

Your course also includes visual art with Kelly Beekman and music with Patti Regan of Berkshire Waldorf School

 

Attendees who previously took a Grades course with Karen had this to say:

~ This course was very satisfying and helpful. The study was the most effective study I have ever experienced.

~ The course was very helpful. I loved how Karen adjusted (it) to meet our needs.

~ Karen was very knowledgeable and shared many tips/resources to help us build confidence and have a good starting point.

~ Karen is so knowledgeable and passionate and she truly inspires me to work on myself.

~ The course flowed beautifully.

~ I loved Karen’s thoroughness.

~ I can’t say how much I love Karen. She is so thoughtful and uses a perfect combination of big overview together with the nitty gritty of pragmatic nuts and bolts. She makes me feel I can do it.

~ What heart and knowledge!  Karen is very real and reassuring. Please invite her back!

 

Schedule
This course runs Sunday evening, July 12-noontime, Friday, July 17, in a synchronous online classroom. See main summer page for format and times.

 

Cost
$550 includes resource materials and two conference calls during the school year. See main summer page for discount options.

 

 

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at [email protected] or 845-425-0055 x20

 

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.